From the arrival of Costa drive-thrus and SMART motorways to automated toll roads, incessant congestion and EV chargers, a personal account of Britain’s changing roadscapes is captured in a new book, authored by a Lancaster University professor, to be published this week.

Britain’s Changing Roadscapes: Mobility, Place, Attachment, Loss, written by Professor of Cultural Theory Lynne Pearce, tells the unfolding story of road journeys by car with a focus on the shifting cultural, social, political, and economic landscapes of Britain,

The book balances journeys past, present and future with a myriad of quirky and fascinating photographs encompassing the ‘wonder and poignancy’ of life on the road and also relays ‘the full agony’ of conveyer belt motorway driving and overhead digital gantries.

It is billed as ‘a must-read for anyone fascinated by the journeys we make by car’ and is published by Routledge.

The motivation behind the book is a lifetime of driving by the author, specifically the long and often not-so-winding road between her current home in the Highlands of Scotland and the south-west of Cornwall where she was born and grew up.

Drawing on her trusted road diaries and photographic archive dating back to the 1990s, the book centres on a route which follows the A85, A82, M8, M74, M6, M5, A30 and Cornwall’s narrow country lanes demonstrating the ‘sheer variety and idiosyncrasy’ of Britain’s road network.

The book is also concerned with how mundane change on the road makes its presence felt, the author arguing that this often depends upon the ‘yardstick’ of the human life as travellers compare the road today with what it was like formerly.

Alongside the ‘new arrivals’ to the British roadscape, Professor Pearce captures significant departures including the disappearance of the roadside cafes, filling stations, phone boxes, lay-bys and snack bars associated with twentieth century motoring.

She reflects on why people develop powerful attachments for particular routes and roadside landmarks such as a significant group of ‘homecoming’ trees on the Cornish border or a favourite and time-evasive service station (Taunton Deane).

This, in turn, relates to one of the book’s key findings - how change on the road can result in profound disorientation for drivers and other road users.

While this may begin as bodily disorientation (taking the wrong turning, getting lost on a once-familiar route), it can also provoke a powerful emotional response.

This is evident in many of the forum posts on the website of the ‘Society of All British and Irish Road Enthusiasts’ [SABRE] that the author draws upon frequently in her case studies.

Change on the road, as in other mundane environments, maps onto change in the human life course, and for road enthusiasts these frequently become entangled.

Along the way, the author identifies seven categories of change that have made their presence felt on Britain’s roads over the past 30 years - including the transformation of the driver-passenger experience as a result of the re-scaling of vehicles (what she refers to as ‘autobesity’), and the impact of extreme weather as the result of climate change.

She notes that the latter is probably the book’s most consequential research finding.

Weather events (in particular, landslips resulting from heavy rain) have made driving in the UK (and especially in Scotland) so much more unpredictable, while extreme heat can make long journeys much more uncomfortable.

Academically, the book addresses long-standing geographical debates on place, place-attachment and aesthetics, as well as the unique properties of ‘journeying’, and is aimed at those working in geography, sociology history, and literary and cultural studies.

However, its autobiographical case studies, historical route descriptions, photographic archive, and general accessibility mean that it should also be of interest to road enthusiasts and the general reader.

Reflecting on the experience of writing the book, Professor Pearce observes that it was the proverbial ‘lifetime in the making’, grounded in a 40-year relationship with Britain’s roads.

“During that time, I’ve seen the gleaming white concrete of Britain’s new motorway network discolour and decay, even while the mundane features of the twentieth-century A-road (phone boxes, lay-bys, snack bars, roadside cafes), and the habits and routines associated with them, slowly fade from view,” she says.

“Day to day, these transformations are imperceptible, but every so often we mark the change and, in the process, reconnect with landmark moments in our own lives as well the social and cultural milieux to which we have belonged.”

Lynne Pearce is a Professor of Literary and Cultural Theory in the School of Arts at Lancaster University and Co-Director (Humanities) of CeMoRe (Lancaster University’s Centre for Mobilities Research). Her recent publications include Drivetime (2016) and Mobility, Memory and the Lifecourse (2019).

Britain’s Changing Roadscapesis published by Routledge on 6 February, 2026 and retails at £155 (hardback) and £36.79 (ebook). A paperback will follow next year.